Despite having a PSVR2, it’s been a good long while since I’ve actually sat down, or stood up to play anything on it. It’s not because I dislike it, but it’s because VR gaming most of the time involves you having to prepare, you have to plug the headset in, you have to make sure the controllers are charged, you have to ensure you’ve got adequate space, which when you live in a flat built in the 2010s, isn’t always avaliable.
Yet, I do like VR gaming, I think there is incredible potential out there and a title like 2025s Ghost Town really shows that potential.
Ghost Town is by Fireproof Studios, the same people who brought up ‘The Room’ series of games, which are also bloody fantastic and well worth checking out if you’re a fan of puzzle games!
In Ghost Town you take on the role of Edith, or Edie, a young woman running a paranormal investigation agency out of her flat, located in a tower block in some part of London!
The start of the game has Edie investigating the ghost of an actress haunting an old theater, along with her brother. The actress was killed on stage when a prop malfunctioned and has been there ever since, awaiting the time for her to be released.
Now, I’ll answer the one question you might have straight away. Ghost Town is not a horror game, otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have been able to get through it. Ghost Town certainly has a spooky atmosphere in the locations you’ll go to, but there are no jump scares to be found, no gore, nothing that sets out to frighten you. The game is about you going to these locations, solving puzzles and going through the narrative.
Obviously, I can’t speak for everyone in terms of their horror tolerance, so some of you might find traversing the locations a bit spooky, and there is certainly one sequence later in the game that does ramp up the tension but I didn’t really find any of the game scary.
Anyway, back to our theater, Edie and her brother break into the theater and make their way to the stage. Where we get to do our first puzzle, a simple case of switching on the overhead lighting to give the ghost a chance to perform its act.
Control wise, I settled for the teleportation method of movement. Hold the forward direction on the analogue stick, point at a location and it warps you to it, you can rotate your character using the analogue stick too. This tends to be my favoured method of controlling VR games as I find it most comfortable, there are an array of settings for people more experienced though.
From here, we can interact with the game world, pushing buttons and pulling levers, it all feels really nice. I played The Room VR a few years ago, so I already knew that Fireproof knew what they were doing when it came to creating a tactile VR world, it’s responsive and logical.
Anyway, we summon the ghost and begin the move her onto the next world but wait! Edies brother is a bit jealous of Edies abilities and he hops in to interfere, causing the ghost to bugger off and leaving Edie a bit miffed.
Cut to a year later and Edie is on a boat heading towards a lighthouse, we soon learn that her brother has gone missing, presumed dead, and she is looking into what happened. From here we get pushed into an absolute brilliant mystery that takes you from a lighthouse location hidden only to those who seem to have certain abilties, to a warlocks mansion, underground subways and beyond as you try to figure out what happened to her brother and the mystery behind a strange artifact you both found some time ago.
I spoke a bit earlier about how comfortable Ghost Town was to play but how about how it looks? Simply put it looks bloody lovely, set in the 1980s, you can see that the team behind it went to great lengths to create an authentic looking world from the technology Edie and her roomate have around their flat, to the posters and decoration seen when traversing the many environments.
This is accompanied by a visual style that works very well for the PSVR2.
How about the puzzles themselves?
With this being a puzzle game, they’re sort of at the heart of it and you want the experience to be a satisfying one!
Well, I can confirm that they were indeed very satisfying even more so in VR due to the tactility added to the experience. It definitely adds a new dimension to things when you’re the one physically pulling the levels, turning the cranks, slotting items into place or rotating things in your hand to find hidden compartments. It all feels fantastic and the tech really holds up, I didn’t really have any issues where things were not moving as expected. (I did however whack my coffee table once or twice during a crank, but that’s a me problem!)
The one thing I would say, there wasn’t really anything here I got massively stuck with, everything felt quite logical to figure out. There were one or two puzzles that gave me a bit of pause for thought in terms of how to approach them, and a few did take a few goes but there was nothing I got stuck on for a prolonged period of time, nor anything that I look back on and go ‘That made no sense!’
It’s worth noting, I have played my fair share of point and clicks in the past, I’ve played The Room in VR, I’ve played through Myst, so whilst I don’t consider myself the smartest person, I do have a bit of experience with the genre but I think it’s also a testament to the puzzle design in the game that there is a challenge to them, but they’re well designed enough to not frustrate the player.
That said, should you find yourself stuck, there is an in build hint system to aid you. I didn’t use it personally, but I have done in one of the prior Room games and Fireproof usually do a grand job with it!
In terms of the plot, I left the game fairly satisfied with it, throughout the course of its 4 or 5 hour run time, it does set up a few extra threads that don’t quite get explored by the end of it, but the core mystery is wrapped up in a nice satisfying way, and it leaves room for a sequel, which I hope is going to be made!
Ghost Town is, simply put, a bloody brilliant experience and a true showcase of the potential of VR gaming. It’s the sort of experience that’s welcoming enough for a newcomer to the format but strong enough for a veteran, it’s got enough there to hook in a more casual gamer but can also satisfy a more experienced gaming.
Whilst it does have a few darker themes mentioned, it’s gentle enough for someone looking for a good puzzle experience but who might not want a full horror game, but also intrigueing enough for someone who might want something atmospheric.
What I’m saying it, it manages to be a great all around game that can satisfy a number of audiences but never manages to be boring with it. It’s fantastic and I strongly urge you all to give it a go!